wrk-1 and rig-5 control pioneer and follower axon navigation in the ventral nerve cord of Caenorhabditis elegans in a nid-1 mutant background.

During nervous system development, neurons send out axons, which must navigate large distances to reach synaptic targets. Axons grow out sequentially. The early outgrowing axons, pioneers, must integrate information from various guidance cues in their environment to determine the correct direction of outgrowth.

Mutations in the Spliceosome Component and Overexpression of Suppress Axon Guidance Defects of Mutants in .

During nervous system development, axons must navigate to specific target areas. In , the cadherin CDH-4 is required for ventral nerve cord axonal navigation, and dorsal nerve cord fasciculation. How CDH-4 mediates axon navigation and fasciculation is currently unknown.

ccd-5, a novel cdk-5 binding partner, regulates pioneer axon guidance in the ventral nerve cord of Caenorhabditis elegans.

During nervous system development, axons navigate complex environments to reach synaptic targets. Early extending axons must interact with guidance cues in the surrounding tissue, while later extending axons can interact directly with earlier "pioneering" axons, "following" their path. In Caenorhabditis elegans, the AVG neuron pioneers the right axon tract of the ventral nerve cord.

Multiple Pathways Act Together To Establish Asymmetry of the Ventral Nerve Cord in .

The central nervous system of most animals is bilaterally symmetrical. Closer observation often reveals some functional or anatomical left-right asymmetries. In the nematode , the most obvious asymmetry in the nervous system is found in the ventral nerve cord (VNC), where most axons are in the right axon tract.

CRISPR/Cas9 Methodology for the Generation of Knockout Deletions in .

The Gene Knockout Consortium is tasked with obtaining null mutations in each of the more than 20,000 open reading frames (ORFs) of this organism. To date, approximately 15,000 ORFs have associated putative null alleles. As there has been substantial success in using CRISPR/Cas9 in , this appears to be the most promising technique to complete the task.

The transmembrane collagen COL-99 guides longitudinally extending axons in C. elegans.

We have identified the transmembrane collagen, COL-99, in a genetic screen for novel genes involved in axon guidance in the nematode C. elegans. COL-99 is similar to transmembrane collagens type XIII, XXIII and XXV in vertebrates.

The Genetics of Axon Guidance and Axon Regeneration in Caenorhabditis elegans.

The correct wiring of neuronal circuits depends on outgrowth and guidance of neuronal processes during development. In the past two decades, great progress has been made in understanding the molecular basis of axon outgrowth and guidance. Genetic analysis in Caenorhabditis elegans has played a key role in elucidating conserved pathways regulating axon guidance, including Netrin signaling, the slit Slit/Robo pathway, Wnt signaling, and others.

GExplore 1.4: An expanded web interface for queries on protein and gene function.

Genetic high-throughput experiments often result in hundreds or thousands of genes satisfying certain experimental conditions. Grouping and prioritizing a large number of genes for further analysis can be a time-consuming challenge. In 2009 we developed a web-based user interface, GExplore, to assist with large-scale data-mining related to gene function in .

Big Data in Caenorhabditis elegans: quo vadis?

A clear definition of what constitutes "Big Data" is difficult to identify, but we find it most useful to define Big Data as a data collection that is complete. By this criterion, researchers on Caenorhabditis elegans have a long history of collecting Big Data, since the organism was selected with the idea of obtaining a complete biological description and understanding of development. The complete wiring diagram of the nervous system, the complete cell lineage, and the complete genome sequence provide a framework to phrase and test hypotheses.

PLR-1, a putative E3 ubiquitin ligase, controls cell polarity and axonal extensions in C. elegans.

During embryonic development neurons differentiate and extend axons and dendrites that have to reach their appropriate targets. In Caenorhabditis elegans the AVG neuron is the first neuron to extend an axon during the establishment of the ventral nerve cord, the major longitudinal axon tract in the animal. In genetic screens we isolated alleles of plr-1, which caused polarity reversals of the AVG neuron as well as outgrowth and navigation defects of the AVG axon.

Identification of 526 conserved metazoan genetic innovations exposes a new role for cofactor E-like in neuronal microtubule homeostasis.

The evolution of metazoans from their choanoflagellate-like unicellular ancestor coincided with the acquisition of novel biological functions to support a multicellular lifestyle, and eventually, the unique cellular and physiological demands of differentiated cell types such as those forming the nervous, muscle and immune systems. In an effort to understand the molecular underpinnings of such metazoan innovations, we carried out a comparative genomics analysis for genes found exclusively in, and widely conserved across, metazoans. Using this approach, we identified a set of 526 core metazoan-specific genes (the 'metazoanome'), approximately 10% of which are largely uncharacterized, 16% of which are associated with known human disease, and 66% of which are conserved in Trichoplax adhaerens, a basal metazoan lacking neurons and other specialized cell types.

The NHR-8 nuclear receptor regulates cholesterol and bile acid homeostasis in C. elegans.

Hormone-gated nuclear receptors (NRs) are conserved transcriptional regulators of metabolism, reproduction, and homeostasis. Here we show that C. elegans NHR-8 NR, a homolog of vertebrate liver X and vitamin D receptors, regulates nematode cholesterol balance, fatty acid desaturation, apolipoprotein production, and bile acid metabolism.

The million mutation project: a new approach to genetics in Caenorhabditis elegans.

We have created a library of 2007 mutagenized Caenorhabditis elegans strains, each sequenced to a target depth of 15-fold coverage, to provide the research community with mutant alleles for each of the worm's more than 20,000 genes. The library contains over 800,000 unique single nucleotide variants (SNVs) with an average of eight nonsynonymous changes per gene and more than 16,000 insertion/deletion (indel) and copy number changes, providing an unprecedented genetic resource for this multicellular organism. To supplement this collection, we also sequenced 40 wild isolates, identifying more than 630,000 unique SNVs and 220,000 indels.

The C. elegans CDK8 Mediator module regulates axon guidance decisions in the ventral nerve cord and during dorsal axon navigation.

Receptors expressed on the growth cone of outgrowing axons detect cues required for proper navigation. The pathway choices available to an axon are in part defined by the set of guidance receptors present on the growth cone. Regulated expression of receptors and genes controlling the localization and activity of receptors ensures that axons respond only to guidance cues relevant for reaching their targets.

A survey of putative secreted and transmembrane proteins encoded in the C. elegans genome.

Background: Almost half of the Caenorhabditis elegans genome encodes proteins with either a signal peptide or a transmembrane domain. Therefore a substantial fraction of the proteins are localized to membranes, reside in the secretory pathway or are secreted. While these proteins are of interest to a variety of different researchers ranging from developmental biologists to immunologists, most of secreted proteins have not been functionally characterized so far.

Fluorescent protein methods: strategies and applications.

Fluorescent proteins such as the "green fluorescent protein" (GFP) are popular tools in Caenorhabditis elegans, because as genetically encoded markers they are easy to introduce. Furthermore, they can be used in a living animal without the need for extensive sample preparation, because C. elegans is transparent and small enough so that entire animals can be imaged directly.

Membrane extensions are associated with proper anterior migration of muscle cells during Caenorhabditis elegans embryogenesis.

C. elegans body wall muscle is formed after a series of well-orchestrated steps. With the onset of specification embryonic muscle cells accumulate under the hypodermal seam cells at the left and right sides of the embryo.

The Flamingo ortholog FMI-1 controls pioneer-dependent navigation of follower axons in C. elegans.

Development of a functional neuronal network during embryogenesis begins with pioneer axons creating a scaffold along which later-outgrowing axons extend. The molecular mechanism used by these follower axons to navigate along pre-existing axons remains poorly understood. We isolated loss-of-function alleles of fmi-1, which caused strong axon navigation defects of pioneer and follower axons in the ventral nerve cord (VNC) of C.

Neurotoxic effects of TDP-43 overexpression in C. elegans.

RNA-binding protein TDP-43 has been associated with multiple neurodegenerative diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal lobar dementia. We have engineered pan-neuronal expression of human TDP-43 protein in Caenorhabditis elegans, with the goal of generating a convenient in vivo model of TDP-43 function and neurotoxicity. Transgenic worms with the neuronal expression of human TDP-43 exhibit an 'uncoordinated' phenotype and have abnormal motorneuron synapses.